Kids
by sweetiepie1019
Summary: My response to the SeddieIsPregnant challenge. It's a oneshot about how screwed up things can get, especially for kids facing adult life situations. Rated T for theme, not actual content


AN: Ok, so there's this challenge – the SeddieIsPregnant challenge. And I wasn't really thinking about doing thing in response, only I kept reading about these pregnancy pacts where a bunch of girls will decide to get pregnant on purpose while still in high school. What? I mean, when these things happen by accident, that's one thing, but why would bring a kid into this world when you're that young and unprepared on purpose? So I decided to write something for the challenge after all. The point is not about abortions or religion or even teenage sex, and in a way it's almost not about Sam and Freddie at all. To me, it's about kids having kids and how screwed up that is. It happens, and you have to make your own choices when accidents occur, but planning to have a kid that young?

Anyway, I'm putting way too much of my opinion into my AN. Read and enjoy, I guess.

Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't think Dan's writing about fifteen-year-old sex, do you?

Sam Puckett's first time wasn't anything like romantic. It wasn't like she slept with a random guy though. She loved him and everything. And ok, she hadn't gotten around to telling him, but at the time, it had felt right. Like if he kissed her like that, he had to be feeling the same way she was.

It started off alright. But all she had ever done – and she was guessing all Freddie had ever done – was kiss. So what started off all hot and passionate quickly became awkward. Most of the time they were fumbling, clumsy with each other, and for Sam the clumsiness mixed in with the pain was something like agony. Then it was over. He held her while she fell asleep, though. That had been nice.

It was five weeks later and she was sitting on a pink fuzzy rug in Carly's bathroom. When she was eleven, Carly had dragged Sam in here to give her a "makeover." When Spencer came to check on them a half hour later, they had eye shadow all over their face, lip gloss on their noses and powder all over their clothes. He'd had them go out in the parking lot so that he could spray them with a hose. Freddie and his mom had walked by during the de-powdering; Freddie managed to wriggle free from his mom's vice grip and ran through the water, getting soaked in a few seconds. Then they'd had to spend the rest of the day covered in hypo-allergenic blankets and sipping green tea. Sam was so mad at Freddie that she'd given him a Texas Wedgie.

That was two firsts – makeover and wedgie. That was only four years ago. Now she was sitting in the same bathroom, holding a pregnancy test.

The thing was, she still gave Texas Wedgies. Carly still had to put her makeup on for her on special occasions. And sometimes when she, Freddie and Carly came home soaked from a serious downpour, Mrs. Benson still made them come into her apartment to dry off with hypo-allergenic, organic weave blankets. In fact, Sam wasn't even that much taller than she'd been back then. Not really that much more mature either.

"Sam?"

Carly managed to sound motherly and a shaking, stuttering kind of nervous at the same time. Sam tried to say something in response, but the inside of her mouth was sticky and hot, and she was afraid if she opened it, she'd just end up having to puke in the Shay's bathtub.

Thirty more seconds.

Pregnancy tests should be instant. She'd already had to wait two weeks for a period that wasn't coming. Plus, she'd had to drink an entire gallon of cherry soda to combat the sudden performance anxiety that gripped her every time she sat on the toilet.

Ten seconds.

_Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease_ …

Well. Pink. Huh.

She was pregnant.

Thankfully she fell sideways when she fainted, thereby avoiding cracking her head open on the edge of the bathtub.

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Seventeen voicemails left in the last three hours.

Two from Rip-Off Rodney reminding her she owed him for the two beef jerky strips he'd given her last week.

One from her lab partner Tina. Tina wanted to know if Sam wanted the homework typed up or handwritten.

The other fourteen were from Freddie. He felt bad about how he had handled the news. He just wanted to talk. She didn't give him enough time. He was scared.

Now her phone was stuffed under her book bag so that the ringtone – "Knocked Up" by Kings of Leon, natch – didn't annoy her so much. She really didn't have time to deal with all these people. She had important things to do.

Like shove a pillow under her hoodie.

It was harder than it sounded. Sam was a fairly tiny person. Most of her clothes were the smallest sizes the mall stores had to offer. XS. XXS. XXXS …

The point was that her pillow just wasn't fitting. That meant that Sam was going to have to buy all new clothes when … well, when she got bigger. It wasn't like she had maternity buying cash just lying around either.

Her nose started running as a tear or two ran down her right cheek. She wiped the goop off on her left sleeve, snorting and snuffing, then used the other sleeve to wipe her eyes. She yanked the pillow from the bottom of her jacket and threw it at her lamp as hard as she could. The lamp toppled to the ground and cracked open with a satisfying smashing sound. Even though she knew for a fact that her mom was home, Sam knew better than to expect her to react to dangerous sounds coming from her daughter's room.

Mrs. Benson was a nut, but at least she was a nut who cared. Was Sam supposed to be like that? Could she manage to care about a little meatloaf-looking thing the way Freddie's mom cared about him? The thought didn't appeal to her. Of course, she couldn't be like her own mom. If she hadn't met Carly and Freddie and Spencer, Sam knew she'd be just like the rest of her family – broke, alone and constantly caught between court hearings, jail sentences, and parole.

Carly didn't have a mom. She turned out ok. But Carly was special, and Spencer redefined special, and Sam didn't want to bring up a kid that hated her anyway.

Adoption?

And what, have a kid that knew she – or he – wasn't wanted? Well, somebody else would want them. That would make up for it. But could she go through nine months with a kid in her stomach only to give him – or her – up to strangers as soon as she – or he – was out?

Besides, what the clinic doctor had said … Sam hadn't told Carly how scared she was, mostly because she wasn't able to put it into words. There was bone-numbing terror and skin-prickling fear and mind-warping panic, and it was all overriding her shame that her own life was more important than that of her little unborn meatloaf.

The thing was, that probably answered all her questions. There was no way she could be a mom when she had no problem putting herself first. So she walked over to the pillow, lying in pieces of shattered lamp, and picked it up.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to her stand-in baby bump. "I hope you don't have, like, a soul or anything yet. Or that if you do, you get recycled and somebody awesome gets you. You deserve better than this. I hope that if you do have a soul and get recycled and grow up to be a teenager … well, if some part of you remembers this, the eternal part or whatever, you understand."

She let go of the pillow and let her hand fall to her stomach. For a second, she could almost feel something, some sort of extra warmth, that she knew had to be her baby. Her throat constricted. It was getting really hard to breathe.

Trembling a bit with unshed tears and unarticulated sobs, she fished her phone out from its hiding place.

"Carls? Yeah. Yeah, I'm ok. Kind of. Look, I need a ride."

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The car ride to the clinic was stiff. Carly had a deer in the headlights look; eyes wide, mouth hanging open slightly, she stared straight ahead for pretty much the entire fifteen minute drive. Sam was too afraid to look at Spencer, so she stared out the window instead. It was drizzling out, and the sky was gloomy grey with clouds.

When they pulled up at the clinic, Carly hopped out of the car right away, keeping her head down and blushing a little as a girl passed her on the way out. Sam moved to do the same.

"Sam …"

She turned to see Spencer looking at her. "Um … yeah?"

"I …" He paused. His forehead was crinkled in the middle, the way grown up's did when they were mad. Like Mrs. Benson or Miss Briggs. Spencer never looked like that. "I hope you know what you're doing."

Sam shook her head, shrugged, then nodded.

Spencer's eyes narrowed. "This is a big decision, you know."

"You don't think I'm making the right one."

"I don't know what's right for you," Spencer said carefully. "That's not what I meant."

"I know." In true mood swing fashion, Sam felt tears prickle at the back of her eyes. She snuffled in a dramatic manner and grinned a watery grin. "Guess you don't want me hanging around Carly so much anymore, huh? Me being such a crappy influence and all." The grin dropped away. "It's ok, Spence," she continued seriously. "I get it. Carly was supposed to keep me out of trouble and here I am dragging her off to an abortion clinic. It's scary for you, seeing her at a place like this, isn't it?"

At that, Spencer stopped looking angry and starting looking sad. "It's not just Carly I'm scared for," he told her, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's all three of you."

"Oh." This time she had to look down and squeeze her eyes tight to keep from becoming a one-girl Niagara Falls.

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah, Spence?" She mostly had herself under control now.

"I'm doing this sculpture for an arts supply store. I'm making a giant paint brush that I'm going splatter all over with different color paints." There was a little of the Spencer manic energy she loved so much gleaming in his eyes. "You wanna come over Saturday and get your splatter on?"

Her laugh gurgled a little, but it was genuine all the same. "Sounds good."

Still, it was weird to think of a future beyond today. That life would move on after this …

"I'll make spaghetti tacos and get some Guillini pie." He was smiling now, a big Spencer Shay smile, the kind that practically split his face in half and made the skin to either side scrunch together like an illustration in a Dr. Seuss book.

Sam nodded, afraid to speak, and slid out of the car.

"Sure you don't want me to come in, kiddo?" Spencer called after her.

Turning around, she nodded and waved.

Before he could drive away, she cleared her throat up enough to say, "Thanks for the ride, Spencer."

He nodded. "Anytime, buddy."

The girl at the front desk of the clinic didn't even look at Sam. Why would she? Clearly she was far too busy playing Cat's Cradle with her gum to deal with wide-eyed pregnant teenagers. "Nub," Sam muttered rebelliously as she took the forms the girl pushed at her and went to sit down next to Carly.

It was few minutes before Carly spoke. "Hey, Sam?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Your mom knows you're here, right?"

Sam chuckled dryly. "Yup. She knows. She said after this I should 'buy a damn condom, for Chrissakes!'" The last part was said in a low, gruff voice, a pretty good imitation of Sam's mom.

"And Freddie?" Carly was staring at her feet now. "He knows?"

"Uh … no. Not really."

"Sam!"

Carly went from nervous to pissed off in five seconds flat. Sam felt her own anger rise up in response, but she shoved it back down, like she'd done with so many of her emotions lately. Damn mood swings, seriously.

As calmly as she could manage, she informed Carly, "If he tries to talk me out of it, I won't be able to do this. Heck, if I even see him, I might not be able to do this. He's a good person, you know? And I don't feel so good right now."

Carly hesitated, gnawing at her lip anxiously. "Is that such a bad thing?" she finally asked cautiously. "Not being able to do it, I mean."

"Carly, I can't." Sam was fighting tears again, and she really hated that. She'd cried more that day then she had all of last year. "I can't … look, I know it's the right thing. I know it is."

Eyes softening, Carly nodded. "I know. I don't want you getting hurt or anything. It's too dangerous, I know." She rested her head against Sam's shoulder and took her hand in a placating sort of way.

Sam thought her friend might have fallen asleep there while she was filling out what felt like a mountain of paperwork, but that theory was proven incorrect when Carly whispered, "He's going to be so mad."

There wasn't anything to say to that, so Sam kept filling out the paperwork, although the pen was shaking a little more now. What could she do? It was entirely possible that Freddie would never forgive her for this, but she had to do it anyway.

This whole pregnancy thing really bit big time.

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For two days after the abortion she lay in her bed, curled under the covers, feeling empty. She only ate once, around lunchtime the second day, and only because she couldn't take the headache her hunger was giving her anymore.

The third day she finally left her room. She ended up eating almost an entire ham that her mom had picked up for her the day before. It was kind of sweet. The gesture, not the ham. Sweet for her mom, anyway.

Then she grabbed a couple things and headed out to the parking lot next to her apartment complex. There was an old, cleaned up oil drum in the corner parking space with the cracked asphalt that nobody used. She'd set it up a while back so that she could burn things, mostly Freddie's things, when the pyro in her got a little antsy. The drum was still sitting there, unused, when she got down. Even though she hadn't needed it in a long time, everybody knew not to touch Sam's things. Not even the people that lived in her decrepit neighborhood messed with Sam.

First she threw in the clothes she'd warn to the clinic and the clothes she'd worn that night with Freddie. Next came the pillow she'd used as a baby bump. Finally, she chucked in the pregnancy test, with its stupid pink plus sign that she'd grown to hate so much.

She doused all of it with gasoline and tossed on the match. It lit up pretty well, and soon there was raging fire coming out of the drum.

All of sudden, Sam had to run to the wall that ran across the back of the lot and puke. It was so powerful that she felt the burn of it in her nose. Snot dripped into her mouth and tears practically flooded down her cheeks and the inside of her mouth tasted like acid and ham.

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"It's gone, Freddie."

She hadn't meant to say it like that. But when Freddie had come into the iCarly studio, babbling about how glad he was she wanted to talk to him and how he wanted to make things right, she couldn't stand another second of him not knowing.

He blinked slowly. "What?"

Sam almost wished, for a moment or two, that she could make it all not true for him. "We're not having a baby, Fredward. Not anymore."

"Did you …" Freddie didn't bother finishing the sentence before his face hardened. "No. No, Carly would've called if you'd had to go to the hospital or something."

Sam shrugged. "Probably."

"So what?" He didn't sound mad, actually. Just very bitter. "You got rid of it? You," he swallowed hard in disgust, "you killed it?"

"Pretty much."

Freddie's mouth worked a little, but he didn't seem to have an answer caustic enough for her comment, so he remained silent, his eyes burning.

Sam sat down in one of the beanbag chairs. She'd been a little off since the clinic; she currently felt like someone had stuffed one of those nozzle spray things at Build-a-Bear up her ear and filled her head with fuzzy bear stuffing. Freddie's expression flickered into mild concern before turning back into something uncomfortably akin to hate. He crossed his arms and stared at her stonily.

She sighed. "Did you know my doctor says I have another inch to grow?"

"What?" It seemed Sam had surprised Freddie into speaking, because he frowned and bit his lip as soon as he was done talking.

"I'm not as tall as I'm going to get. Hopefully you aren't, either," she added with a hint of her old menace, giving him a look over. "And my fingers aren't as long either. I could go up a whole ring size and everything. Maybe another couple shoe sizes."

Freddie didn't say anything this time, but he looked confused instead of vicious. That was an improvement.

"Plus, did you know my boobs don't even stop developing until I'm twenty-five? I have some seriously under developed cleavage here," she continued, waving her hand around just under her collarbone. "It's everything, ok? I'm still growing. I'm still making bone marrow and having skin stretch out and filling out all over the place. And all that stuff's going on because I'm a kid."

Taking a deep breath, Freddie sank down on the bean bag across from her. "Ah," he said, his eyebrows twitching together.

"Look, I should've told you before I did it," Sam conceded, leaning back a little and stretching her legs out. Her abdomen was aching funny. "I'm so sorry about that. It's ok if you have to mad about that. You don't have to forgive me for it, because it was a cruddy thing to do. But I can't apologize for having the abortion. Freddie, you and I are fifteen. We're kids. Both of us are just _kids_."

"And we shouldn't be having one," Freddie concluded sadly.

"Yeah." Sam looked down and played with the hem of her shirt. "There was another thing, too."

"What's that?"

"The doctor said there could be complications. Serious complications. On account of me being so small and young and everything." Sam's voice was barely above a murmur. "It wasn't safe for me to have the baby."

"Oh," Freddie said. Sam couldn't be sure, seeing as she wasn't looking at him, but he sounded kinda relieved. Not about the baby so much, but that she had chosen not to put herself in danger.

There was silence in the loft for a minute.

Sam was the one to break it. "Freddie, I don't know a lot about religion. I always figured there wasn't any point in worrying about it because it wasn't going to affect how my life anyway. I was going to be me, no matter what."

Freddie nodded mechanically. She wasn't sure if he really heard what she was saying.

"Only these days I'm thinking that I have something to answer for if there is an afterlife. I have to live with that." She smiled wistfully. "It's not easy either. I've really been into the self-loathing lately. The thing is, though, is that I'll answer for the crap I did these past couple months when and if that time comes. But I'm not going to spend my time here trying to make up for what I did. We made a mistake – and frankly you can figure out whether the sex or the unprotected part was the mistake in our unprotected sex for yourself – and I made a couple bad choices, but I did what I think was the right thing under the circumstances. I'm not going keep apologizing for it." Sam peered at him through her bangs. "Understand?"

"You should have told me," Freddie reminded her firmly.

"Yeah."

"I bought little shoes," he said, staring right at her. Her chest constricted. "I was going to show you I wasn't scared anymore. They were smaller than my palm."

It was harder to talk now, but she managed. "Ok."

At last he relaxed, lying back in his chair. "How did we get here? Pregnancy and abortion before we can drive a car."

"You mean drive a car legally," Sam corrected. "We're young."

"And stupid," Freddie added petulantly.

Sam stretched her arms and legs out and tilted her head back. "I don't think we're so young anymore." Staring up at the ceiling, she practically whispered, "Hey, Freddie?"

"Huh?"

"I think I loved you. As long as we're confessing things." She shrugged into the beanbag. "I might still love you. I don't know for sure."

Something nudged her foot. She looked down her body to see his shoe touching her own. "Sam, I think I'm going to have to hate you a little bit. For a while. Because you didn't tell me and I can't help but be mad about it."

Sam nodded, pulling her arms back down and wrapping them around her waist.

"But maybe when I'm done with that," Freddie continued, sliding his other foot next to hers, "I might still be in love with you, too."

"I think we're still really stupid," she informed him, shifting herself a little so their feet locked more comfortably. "Especially you."

"Maybe," he said comfortably. "But we're different. I think we'll do better this time."

They sat there for at least an hour, their feet lying on top of each other, thinking their own private thoughts. Carly finally called up to them that the pizza was here, and were they hungry? They decided they were, so they went down to join Spencer and Carly for dinner just like any other night. It felt comfortable and foreign all at once.

Sam could only hope that Freddie was right – they'd do things better this time.

AN: It occurs to me that I should mention I'm adopted, which may be where some of my thoughts come from. Draw your own conclusions about which thoughts. Alright, I'm done with that. New chapters for my multi fics are coming soon! I will be a good fanfic writer soon … Love? Hate? Review!


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